Official: Pa. plane left a half-hour before crash

Authorities search the wreckage of a plane crash in a cornfield in Butler Township, Adams County Pa., on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013. The plane crashed early Thursday in a fruit-farming area north of Gettysburg, killing at least one person, state police said. Trooper Rob Hicks said the crash scattered debris over a quarter-mile area, and the plane was destroyed. He said there did not appear to have been a fire or explosion. (AP Photo/York Daily Record/Sunday News, Jason Plotkin)

BIGLERVILLE (AP) — The manager of a small central Pennsylvania airport says a plane that crashed into a field in a fruit-farming region outside Gettysburg, killing at least two people, had taken off from the airfield about a half-hour earlier.

He said state police visited the airport Thursday to confirm that the flight originated there but asked him not to release the owner’s name. Autopsies on the victims are slated Friday.

Police said the plane went down at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday east of Biglerville, scattering debris over a quarter-mile area. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.